After Ingleside
by Alinyaalethia
Summary: A look at the Blythe and Meredith children beginning shortly after the end of Rilla of Ingleside. In places it will nod to 'Lilacs,' but can be read in its own right.
1. Evening at Ingleside

**As ever, these characters are not mine.**

* * *

'I do not think 'As Pants the Hart' a suitable hymn for a wedding, Mrs. Dor. Dear, and that you may tie to,' said Susan comfortably, sitting down in her preferred chair on the Ingleside veranda.

'Don't you Susan? I thought the sentiment was right somehow,' said Anne, from her place surveying the garden. It _was_ nice to have a garden again.

'I don't pretend to know about sentiment,' said Susan robustly, 'but I do know there were words in that hymn as should not be said in church,' and she gave her knitting a vigorous shake to unroll it as she said so.

'I don't suppose one of those words was 'God,' Susan,' said Rilla impishly. She had baby Gilbert on her lap and just at that moment, everything about the world felt right. Susan made a noise that conveyed that Rilla had quite missed the point, without saying so, and went on knitting.

'It wasn't the music I noticed,' said Mrs. Marshall Eliot, by turns Miss Cornelia to friends, 'but a wedding in church. It did feel Roman, didn't it Susan?'

'Well…' said Susan reluctantly, for she did not like to criticize anything to do with her little brown boy, nor if she could help it, to agree with Mrs. Marshall Eliot, whatever she might think of weddings in churches, *'no more so than those evening weddings with nothing but candles.' Mrs. Marshall Eliot sniffed, for certainly Mary's wedding had been an evening affair and there was no getting around the candles, nor indeed were their uncomfortably catholic connotations immediately escapable.* She said instead,

'I suppose we learn habits from the people around us, even if they are Episcopalian ones.'

'There is really nothing wrong,' said Susan tartly, 'in being close to those that love you,' for she felt quite absurdly protective of Una Meredith as had been, even if she were responsible for depriving Susan of her dear brown boy. If she managed to imply that Mary had caught the notion of evening ceremonies and candles off of Mrs. Marshall Eliot, there was no harm done there either.

'Go softly, both of you,' said Anne and raised a hand in greeting to Rosemary Meredith as she came up the walk.

* * *

Rosemary sat down on the Ingelside steps and said contentedly, 'your June Lilies smell heavenly this evening, Anne. And they always come up nicer than anyone else's. What do you do to them?'

'Oh, this and that,' said Anne vaguely. 'I talk an awful lot to them, Gilbert and Susan will tell you I talk too much to them, but I don't really feel that's possible. They just look like good listeners, those lilies.'

'They do, rather,' said Rosemary smiling. She had not her friend's fancies, but she did feel just then she could do with someone to talk to, and she supposed the Manse tiger lilies would do as well as anything else, in the absence of her almost-daughter. Oh, she was glad, very glad, to see her happy, but it did not mean she would miss her any less. Who, for instance, was going to suggest mid-afternoon tea purely so that the mending could be delayed and secrets traded? Not Bruce, he was growing ever up, and John was working more than usually furiously at his sermons and intercessions because that was his particular way of managing.

'You do look,' said Anne, migrating to the steps and drawing her knees to her chest, as she had in girlhood, 'as if all the cares of the world have just descended on you.' Rosemary shook her head. 'I swear the house is growing,' she said absently. 'Where are all my children going to Anne?'

It occurred to Miss Cornelia just then that she could point out that saving Bruce, none of the Meredith children was really Rosemary's but did not for two reasons; in the first instance it would be unkind and she was fond of Rosemary. In the second, you could be forgiven for thinking that all the Manse children, Una especially, were Rosemary's, for they had always been a very close family.

'I have a notion Carl went off to the Amazon, or some such thing, though why the Almighty thought it to the good I do not know,' said the prosaic Susan. They laughed. Rilla murmured something about putting Gilbert down for the evening and kissed her mother as she went.

'I do hope I haven't chased her away,' said Rosemary anxiously.

'That you have not,' said Susan just as Anne began to answer, 'for she came up with that blessed boy after supper and has been here ever since. Kenneth will be wondering where she and his child have got to.'

'She did too,' said Anne reassuringly. 'As to the house growing, I know the feeling. Ingleside never used to feel so big, not even when half my children were overseas. I suppose I knew they were coming back, then.'

'They have not gone so far that they cannot visit often, Mrs. Dr. dear, and that I will tie to. That they do visit I don't need to tell you.' She was really telling herself, and Anne felt this, for Shirley had always been Susan's favourite and it was no secret she would miss him.

'There is that,' mused Rosemary, 'and it won't be very hard to call on Una anyway, the house is so very nearby. I did wonder she shouldn't want to be further from home but she only said she had never wanted to travel much.'

'Is it true,' said Miss Cornelia now, 'that the only way into that house is through the back door?' This in such a way that you could be forgiven for thinking, thought Rosemary with a smile, that there was no sin worse than forcing one's company to enter a house from the back door.

'Not exactly true,' said Rosemary, who had seen the house with the greengage tree, 'only, the front door opens onto a slope and it's awkward to get to. But the letterbox and milk pantry seem to be on that side of the house, so some people must make use of it.' 'Whyever did the builder set it so that it fronted a slope?' Miss Cornelia asked now.

'I think it was a farm before, the river at the base of the hill made a natural barrier against dogs if you put animals to pasture. It's Mr. Taylor's pasture now but the house still fronts the river and there are lilacs and a plum tree, so it will take a month of Sundays for Una to see a fault in it.'

'I shall never understand about the lilacs,' said Susan, who had been hearing her boy talk of little else, in spite of his claims not to be poetic, 'though I concede they do smell pretty in their turn.' She looked now at the mothers on the steps, but Anne only said, 'I have always loved lilacs, and I think there is a memory they share tied in with them Susan, but I couldn't say what.'

* * *

Rosemary was quiet. She did know, Una had told her ages ago, of an evening late in the year when the lilacs needed cutting back, but she did not feel it was her memory to share. She could only sit and look with mixed feelings at the June lilies in the Ingleside garden, and wonder why God saw fit to mix up private happiness with just enough of its opposite that you could never be quite sure which way was up for a little while after any event that meant anything.

* * *

The passage marked by * is not really a private sentiment; it was, however, my Grandmother's and her mother's also, which is why I have given it to Susan here.


	2. Greengage Close

**Tiny Teddy - I've written this in more or less based on your request in your review (for which as ever, many thanks) but it does rather mean that it does nothing to drive the plot forward. About the plot; it occurs to me I ought to warn readers at some point that this is not all sweetness and light and 'wanting shade' as my writing so often has been. I don't mean this with regards to this chapter -just a general reflection on the narrative.**

* * *

The house fronting the river is christened Greengage Close, Mary discovers, the first time she comes to call, for so proclaims the rounded wood sign beside the back door. She lets herself in quite happily and says by way of greeting,

'Did the sign out back come with the house?'

'Mm?' says Una, from where she is sitting mending, back to the door.

'Greengage Close,' Mary prompts and Una says,

'No-o, that was a gift I suppose, from Shirley,' this all very quickly without looking at her friend.

'I think he's pleased he can still do that kind of woodwork.'

'It's a good name,' says Mary. 'It does what it says it will do. Come make up a pot of tea Una, Cornelia is always saying a house isn't a home until you've made a pot for someone else.'

There is an apology halfway to Una's lips but Mary gets there first and says, 'you have no right to apologise to someone who comes in without so much as a by-your-leave and then bosses you about your own kitchen.' Una laughs. Mary says, 'I bet you're enjoying having your own kitchen, am I right?'

'You know me too well,' says Una, filling the kettle with water. 'But,' she adds fondly, 'I do rather miss Rosemary.'

'You can't possibly. You can practically see the Manse from here,' says Mary.

'I know I shouldn't want to be so close to Cornelia.'

'Yes well,' says Una and there is really nothing else she can say. Mary knows it and gives her a look.

'She was that rare person who _could_ share a kitchen Mary, even if I can't.' Mary snorts.

'I wonder. Mind you, you made it work an awfully long time.'

Una fetches the kettle off of the hob. Shirley looks in through the doorway to see if it is safe to come through for tea. He decides it is not. He does not dislike Mary, though she is sometimes a bit grating. But then she is fond of Una, so he can't really hold that against her. All the same, tea will keep. Meantime the friends sit and talk in the warm morning light of the kitchen. Mary is full of Miller's plans for the shop and of hers for improving the house and for getting Bryant 'ahead.'

'You might leave him a little time to grow up,' said Una laughing.

'I suppose you know all about it?' said Mary playfully.

'More than you credit me with, you're forgetting how much time I spent with Bruce when he was small. Honestly Mary, the things I've learned about planes.'

'That can't be all Bruce's fault,' says Mary reasonably but Una shakes her head, _it is_, her look says. The only thing she did not learn from little Bruce was how wrong an aeroplane could go, what could happen when it did. She does not think that's what Mary means, and it is too nice a day for such a thought.

'You know,' says Mary, helping herself to tea and entirely forgetting about the strainer, 'you might have told _me_ before you went and gave your heart away. I told you nearly everything, didn't I?'

'That isn't fair –I really didn't realize I had.' Una wonders vaguely why Mary insists on talking about such complicated things as feelings.

'You clearly worked it out in your own time,' Mary says amicably. Conversations like this bother her not a bit and are good for teasing her friend, she knows Una well enough to know she is not so easily shocked as she presents, that that is a curious hangover from her childhood.

'There wasn't much to tell you, and even if there had been, you know I'm not good with words. Have fresh cup of tea Mary, there's lots and that one's half leaves.'

Mary allows her to change the conversation with the tea. She has the sense not to say she doesn't mind about the tealeaves; she feels sure Una knows this. When she goes, she takes with her some of the first of the greengage jam, with a promise to tell Una how it has come out.

* * *

The afternoon takes Una up to the Manse, to visit with Rosemary, and because she is there, to help with the dinnertime washing up. Rosemary does not let her until Una says it's the least she can do to compensate for the use of the tea-things. They sit out at the front of the house, in the golden light of the day, admiring the tiger lilies, now as tall as Bruce. They talk of housekeeping and gardening, of the Glen and the death of Dog Monday, Carl's letters and how grown-up Bruce has become overnight. They trade secrets and Rosemary thinks how nice it is not to have lost Una after all, to find her still recognizably the girl she has grown so close to in all the ways that count.

* * *

When she comes in again it is to find Shirley at the kitchen table, work spread out before him, but he puts it to one side and says, 'Faith rang while you were out.'

'Did she say why?'

'I never thought to ask,' and he looks too apologetic for her to mind. She moves to sit opposite him, but he reaches for her hand and sits her by him.

'I missed you while you were out.'

'You can't have, I wasn't gone long enough.'

'Not to you, you had company for tea.' It is her turn to be apologetic.

'I'll put the kettle on if you like, unless you made it up yourself?'

'I didn't want to put anything back in the wrong place,' and she has to laugh. Bruce had, still has, probably, a knack for doing this; the only fire the Manse ever had it had because Bruce once tried to heat up hot milk before bed and let the pot boil dry from sheer inexperience. Una had taught him properly after that.

'What are you smiling at?' he says and so she tells him.

'And the Manse cat, how is she?'

'In disgrace; she tried to climb into the house through the kitchen window and took the Wisteria with her when she fell.'

'Whatever did she want to do that for?' He feels responsible for the cat he introduced to the Manse.

'She was trying at being an outdoor cat but it didn't take. But no one was awake to let her in and the window wasn't properly shut. Seemingly Moggie can work a latch but can't climb.'

'I see,' says Shirley, not seeing. Isn't a window either opened or closed? And how can a cat possibly work a latch? He decides not to ask. Then, because she prompts him to, he tries to explain the long columns he has been negotiating for the best part of that afternoon. It is good, he thinks as he talks, to sit companionably like this; to talk of inoffensive things like numbers and cats. He is reluctant when she rises to start supper.

'Will I be in the way if I go on working here?' he asks, and she shakes her head, no, not at all.


	3. Afternoons at Lowbridge

Rilla had gone down to Lowbridge for the day to call on her sister at the Manse. They were not exactly close, not in the way Nan was close to Di, but Susan had offered to have little Gil for the day and she had wanted out of the house, and Nan had sounded halfway to hysterics over the phone. She was not having an easy time of this first baby, Rilla thought sympathetically. That was obvious to anyone who was looking, for Nan looked quite decidedly ill. Then she didn't feel anywhere near ready for the baby, when it did come, which was still, Rilla pointed out now, as she helped piece a crib quilt, some four months away, and she was struggling to keep house on top of it.

'…and people would talk so if I had someone in to help,' Nan was saying. 'They mind about things like that. Your remember…well no, you couldn't really, how people talked about Jerry's Aunt Martha.'

'I remember enough,' said Rilla staunchly, 'to know the Glen was justified about Aunt Martha's housekeeping and Lowbridge would not be.' Nan, still with pins tucked into the side of her mouth, leaned across the table to give her sister a cautious hug.

'Besides,' Rilla went on, 'you know Una would come in a minute. So would any of us if it comes to that.'

'I know, but you've all got your own lives to get on with. Una would come and never complain and I'd feel sick about it because I know she's so enjoying being able to finally keep her own house, and she ought to be allowed a little time to settle anyway. You've got Gil to see to…'

'I could bring him round easily enough. He would sleep through any case.'

'And no doubt keep you up all night,' says Nan laughing.

'He does that anyway; a more nocturnal child I don't know. But if you're that anxious about it, Faith…'

'Is no housekeeper and you know it, although I admit the Lowbridge people could hardly complain if my own or Jerry's sisters came to help.'

'Di then,' said Rilla firmly. 'You can't feel you're taking her away from anything.'

Nan was quiet and Rilla thought she might have scored a victory. Then Nan said, 'Di is going away at the end of the summer, to British Columbia, to work for a family called Harris. I've been hearing about it no end and –but I'm not supposed to have said, Rilla. Only I had to, I've been going to pieces with the effort of not saying.'

'Of course you have,' said Rilla, determined to put her feelings to one side. 'And of course I won't say. But whatever possessed her to do that?'

'I don't know, only as soon as she said it I remembered how many of her girlhood fantasies had been about going abroad, and she's been longing to do something ever since Carl and Persis went away, I think because it proved that people could leave the Island if they wanted to.'

'She ought to tell father you know, he will hate to let her go.'

'And mother's been comforting herself with the notion that she will still have Di at home, I know,' said Nan mournfully. 'I really did tell her so, Rilla. But she only made up her mind to go in the middle of June, and of course we were all preoccupied with other things then, and only found out that she was to go in early July, and she was determined to wait until after Shirley had gone. Gracious knows why. I suppose she felt she'd take attention away from him. I do wonder if we didn't to that rather too often as children.'

Rilla patted her sister's arm sympathetically. 'If we did, it's been all to the good in a roundabout sort of way. I'm sure he wouldn't have gone to the Manse half so often after…' Rilla does not fully realize this thought. The memory of it is still too vivid. '…If we'd understood better, I suppose I'm saying.'

Nan smiled. 'You may be right. And it's good to see him really happy about something. I can't remember if I have before, isn't that dreadful?'

They sit companionably for a while, piecing and quilting, Rilla's stitches improbably small, until Nan says, 'when did you get to be so wise? Anyone would think you're the older sister, listening to us.'

Rilla laughed. 'Oh I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure they would. It's only that I enjoy housekeeping.'

'You do too, it suits you. You've been glowing ever since you were married,' says Nan affectionately.

'As to the other thing, about Shirley, I've been a long while cultivating Una.'

It was Nan's turn to laugh. 'Good, you'll be near neighbours, won't you?'

'Near enough. Now, about someone coming to help you…'

The crib quilt had progressed and Rilla had argued, bullied and persuaded until Nan agreed that if Una, Rilla, Di while they had her, and Faith, who had to be asked if only out of fairness, were willing to come to Lowbridge turn and turn about, Nan would feel easier about life. Having settled this, Rilla had sent her sister to lie down, she really did look as if she needed it, and telephoned to Susan that she might be late getting back and why. Susan said only, 'A good thought too. They've been needing help all this spring and I haven't known what the best way to do it is. You take your time, that blessed baby of yours will be quite safe at Ingleside.'

'I know he will,' said Rilla as she rang off. Then she went to make up a casserole. It would keep Nan and Jerry going until she could get something sorted out.

* * *

'But of course she needs help,' said Una firmly over morning tea the following day. 'I've been meaning and meaning to ring her and I haven't had a spare minute.' Rilla motioned to the dozens of glass jars on the kitchen counter.

'Your hands have been full. I shouldn't worry about it. And she was determined not to put you out.'

'That's like Nan, very sweet and very well meant,' says Una, replenishing her friend's teacup.

'But they're not so full that I can't take the odd day out to help. I've no more to do than anyone else really.'

Rilla stares hard at the surface of her tea, reaches for the creamer, and wonders what Una will do to her if she tries to articulate Nan's anxiety about interfering with Una 'settling' at the house. She and Shirley hadn't gone away, and Una maintained she would not have wanted to, even if it had been possible. On the whole, Rilla thought it would be safer to leave well enough alone.

'I do wonder,' Una is saying now, 'that she doesn't have Di for a spell.'

'Ye-es…' says Rilla, feeling bound to keep her sister's confidence, but aware that doing so must mean presenting Di as being at one remove to the sister she has always been inseparable from.

'I don't think she realized,' Rilla says at last. ' It's different now we're all living apart from each other. I know I didn't properly appreciate how difficult things had got at Lowbridge until the other afternoon. I don't suppose you ever made…' she is thinking of Una's hope chest, which she remembers as being over-full with household things.

'No,' says Una apologetically. 'It's terribly bad luck to do baby clothes before there's a baby to make them for. But I'll see what I can't do,' she says as if to put it right.

'I didn't mean to make work for you,' says Rilla anxiously.

'I know you didn't, and you haven't,' says Una and she presses Rilla's hand across the table.

'It will all come right,' she says firmly. Rilla nods.

'I hope it does,' she says, so anxiously, that Una, pouring out fresh tea, gives her a look that says, _what aren't you telling me?_ Rilla nurses her teacup and her own eyes say_ I wish I knew_.

* * *

When Shirley comes in from the store, he finds her bent over an unusually small sewing project.

'For Nan,' she says without looking up, because she can hear some joke shaping on his mouth. He comes and sits by her and says, 'you look far too worried about what ought to be good news.'

For a moment she stops sewing and closes her eyes, leans he head on his shoulder.

'I wish I knew why,' she says softly. 'It's just a feeling I have.'

It won't do any good to point out that her instincts are usually right, he knows, so he brushes loose hair out of her eyes and says, 'tell me about it.'

She tries to, about Rilla's visit, the way Rilla had sounded and looked, how it had left her feeling over-anxious in a way she has not felt for a long time now. Then she puts the sewing by, disentangles herself from him and says, 'I should start on supper. Come and talk to me about today while I do.'

He sits at the round wood table and watches her chop carrots and peel potatoes and talks about the day, how Miller Douglas is, how much trouble the figures for the store in town are proving.

'I'm glad you understand it,' she says, sounding lighter than she has done since he got in.

'I'm hopeless at numbers, they never come right for me.'

'It's like turning a skein into a ball of wool; find the end and it unravels without any trouble, get the wrong one and it takes longer but you can reach the same place.'

'How do you know so much about winding wool?' she says, and she is laughing.

'I used to help mother Susan in the evenings, she said it took two people to wind wool.'

'It does, I used to get Bruce to hold the skein for me.' She smiles at the memory.

The telephone picks that moment to ring and Shirley goes for it. He looks at her and says,

'Half a minute,' and shapes without saying, 'Rilla for you,' to measure whether she wants to be given the phone. She is halfway across the kitchen before he has finished, and he gives her the mouthpiece. He hovers nearby long enough to decide that if they are going to talk as quickly and anxiously as they seem to be, he had better go out of the room. He will be on hand when Una cradles the phone.

* * *

The first time Una goes round to the Lowbridge Manse, she finds Nan curled up asleep in a chair in the front room. She is glad she has let herself in, courtesy of the key under the window-box, because Nan looks as if she needs to be asleep. She also looks very nearly ill. It worries Una, who cannot help thinking of the details in Persis's letters -she feels she is learning everything Persis has learnt at one remove - and she takes care to set down the basket of baby things quietly before through to the kitchen to see what needs doing. Nan does not wake up until Una has finished with the dusting, put the laundry to soak and started on cooking dinner. Then Nan comes through to the kitchen, sits down at the counter and says,

'You are leaving me nothing to do in my own house.'

'It looked as if doing nothing mightn't hurt you,' says Una firmly. Nan shakes her head but says, 'you may be right,' which is not only not what she meant to say but quite out of character.

Una looks at her hard over the bowl of pasty she is making up. She wonders if perhaps Nan has miscalculated about the baby, it certainly looks as if it ought to be due in less than four months. Mind you, she doesn't know anything about it, not really. Only what Persis writes to her. Such odd things, Una thinks, but all the same, she finds herself counting backwards from August to see if it fits with Nan's baby. It does not, so she tries to remember if Faith or Rilla had quite this much trouble, looked so big or so ill, and decides they did not.

'What am I taking you away from?' Nan asks now, her voice still half-drunk with sleep.

"Nothing that won't keep.' Una opens the icebox and slips her hands in briefly, just enough that they will be cold for folding things into pastry.

'Does that help?' Nan asks now, 'my hands have always been the wrong temperature for pastry.'

'I think it does, it's a trick of Rosemary's.' Nan nods, makes a bid to be useful and does not succeed. Una looks her over again and thinks _she really is too small for that baby, she has always been small_, but says nothing. Instead she makes a mental note to put it to Persis in a letter. It is just possible Persis will have something helpful to say in answer.


	4. A Parting

**I know just how you feel, re Downton. They have discovered 'one in, one out.' I promise I'm not trying to write a soap opera, just a story with a plot:) **

**Tiny Teddy, I missed a review of yours, for ****which I apologize. I too have a vivid picture of their house, and if I were technologically competent, I would upload it. On the other hand, I like that you and I will picture the house each in our own way. And I have plans for Nan, you needn't worry.**

* * *

The lilacs have lost their bloom and there are very few greengages left on the tree in the yard the evening Di says she is going away. It is one of those rare evenings when everyone is round at Ingleside, the Blythes have contrived it so, arranging that their children come together at least once a month, though often it is more than that.

'But why?' says Faith perplexedly.

'Of course you must go if you wish to,' says Anne, and she tries not to say it sadly, but her eyes are starry.

'How long have you been thinking of it?' Jem says.

Una remembers Rilla's hesitance –reticence –about Di helping her sister not that long ago, and wonders if Rilla knew. She must have done. But Una only continues to radiate quiet contentment and says, 'it will make you happy to go, won't it?'

Di is grateful to her for understanding. She does her best to answer the others' questions and wishes her father would say something. He looks so much older just then than she has ever thought of him. Susan says only,

'I'm sure the Almighty knows what He's doing, sending you all away, but I do sometimes wish he would hint what the good He sees in it might be,' and proceeds to divide a golden apple crumble and send the creamer round. Everyone makes a valiant effort not to laugh. Jem does not manage this completely, so is overcome with a bout of coughing.

'We haven't all gone away, Susan,' says Rilla, and there is laughter in her voice.

'And don't think I'm not thankful for it,' says Susan, looking more than a little pointedly at Shirley, that moment preoccupied with negotiating the creamer out of small Walter's hands because his father is still coughing and thus unable to. Faith is entirely the wrong side of the table to be of any use in battle her child is waging with his uncle.

'All the same,' says Anne wistfully, 'it is hard letting you all go. Why didn't you say before dearest?'

Di traces a pattern on the tablecloth. 'There were other things to think of then. I didn't want to detract from anything.'

'You know you wouldn't have done,' says Una fondly, catching the spoon baby Gilbert has just tried to drop. She hands it back to Rilla who smiles her thanks.

'I know but I didn't want to get in the way of…'

'Can we straighten something out?' Una is laughing as she says it. Di nods.

"I have been helping and learning to keep house far too long to need to get used to it.'

Di laughs. Nan looks at Rilla; if_ you've told her_, that look says, but even then Rilla is shaking her head. 'I never said…' she says to Nan over the table.

'You didn't need to,' says Una and rescues Gil's spoon again. 'I've known you too long. You talk too much with your eyes.'

Rilla closes her eyes even as Una says it; she is thinking _it's not only me that's guilty there_.

* * *

Everyone has something for Di as she packs to go away. Rilla makes up a neat dress in deep green cotton that will wear well. Nan writes out and annotates all the recipes she has come to trust and binds them with the same kind of blue ribbon she has bought every year from Carter Flagg to tie her sister's birthday gifts with. Una brings over a shawl from Persis and Carl and a thick log-cabin quilt from Greengage Close. Mother gives her a framed photograph of the house, so she can 'think of home' when she looks on it, and Father gives her a journal to write everything down, 'I want to know all about it,' he says affectionately. It is this journal Di secretly comes to cherish most in after years, because it will help to recapture those early days at the house called Hillside, when she was still finding her way.

* * *

They all come down to the station to see her off, and she almost wishes they would not because the sight of so much of her family congregated there makes her think of the war. But she cannot blame them for wanting to say a proper goodbye when she does not know when she will be home again. She kisses the little boys, who are too little to really understand what is happening. To Nan she says,

'For goodness sake take care of yourself, and keep in touch. I want to know everything.'

She hugs her sister fiercely, in spite of the baby that she thinks Una might be right about when she said it was too big, and hisses in Nan's ear, 'and please let them look after you. I only wish I could stay to see it through.'

'I will be fine, everything will be fine,' says Nan into her sister's shoulder, 'and you take care. Travel safely, promise?'

'I promise.' She lets Nan go and the last memory that her family are to have of her for a long while is of her smiling as she says her last goodbyes.

* * *

'It will be strange not having Di about,' says Nan when they sit down to dinner at Ingleside. This was Susan's idea, because she said, it had been too long since she had cooked for as few people as were now at Ingleside.

'You'll hear from her,' says Shirley, 'she was always a good correspondent.' Nan refrains from saying that that is not the same thing.

'And there's always the telephone when a letter won't do,' says Rilla, who seems to understand slightly better.

'I don't know. Are the family she's going on a party line too? Come to that, how long can you have an international call for?'

This is aimed at Shirley, who can usually be relied upon to know things like this. He looks to Una and then to Faith, but neither of them has ever had cause to need to telephone Carl. Even if they had, Una reflects, she is not sure the Amazon is possessed of telephones.

'I think it's three minutes still,' said Faith. 'I think that's how long I used to have when I rang home during the war. Does that sound about right?' She looks at her sister hopefully.

'Yes, yes I remember now. Because the only time we talked for longer it was when you rang to catch us up about Carl's eye –you were able to declare it an emergency so there was no restriction.' Everyone about them goes very still. They have tried before, Una, Faith and Jerry, to communicate that there is no longer any sting in the memories connected with Carl's eye –especially now he is so well recovered. But the Blythes have never quite grasped this and it isn't really their fault, Faith thinks. She says, in an effort to lighten things, 'that call cost a fortune, I can't remember if I told you. The figures when they came through were the only thing I ever saw as a nurse that brought me close to fainting.'

Una laughs, shakes her head, 'you never did tell me. Probably just as well. But you can fit a lot into three minutes,' she says, smiling at Nan.

'Yes, I suppose you can,' says Nan, but she does not add that whatever she says is likely to be heard by all her near neighbours, it is the hazard of an open party line and they all know it. How often must they have gone to pick up the phone to find someone else using the line? With a smile she remembers that this was how they had heard that Miranda Prior –what had her name changed to, Nan wondered –had had her baby. Mary had picked up the telephone to the information and duly relayed it to Rilla.

'You are thinking of something,' says Jem teasingly, and when she tells them they all really laugh for the first time that day and it feels good.

'Nothing's perfect,' says Gilbert thoughtfully, 'we'll just have to write often Nan, and maybe visit now and again.' Neither of them really believes they will visit but it is a pleasing castle-in-the-air, so for the time being they cling to it.

* * *

When Rilla comes round to Lowbridge the next day, she makes more than usual fuss and makes a special effort with her sister. After all, it is only the two of them without Di, even if Faith and Una have come to count as family in their own right. Nan laughs at the muchness Rilla makes of her but Rilla only says she has always been sentimental and Nan ought to know this. Secretly, Nan is glad. They work companionably, which is not something Nan is ever able to do with Faith or Una, who do for her and wrap her in cotton wool. Days like those are good too, and they are probably right to feel she needs them, but it is just the slightest bit nicer to feel she and Rilla are working together. She cuts vegetables while Rilla seasons meat –something Nan has always hated doing, and rolls pastry. Then they spend a quiet afternoon hemming curtains for the nursery. It is only as Rilla is on her way out that she makes her sister lie down, and then she sits by the bed, though Nan is really too tired to notice, and smoothes her hair out against the pillow, the way she does for Gil. Nan knows only that Rilla is nearby and vaguely comforting, and is glad.


	5. Tea and the Advent of Tabitha

**Tiny Teddy -as ever thank you for your review. I agree they'll miss Di. It comes of my having too many people to juggle though, and I do have ideas for her. I may even get round to writing them out one day. **

* * *

Una had not meant to acquire Tabitha and she certainly did not mean to acquire Miriam. True, she had lived much of her life with a cat close at hand, but that did not mean that Greengage Close necessarily needed one. All the same, the second Tuesday in August brought the sound of frantic scrabbling at the front door into the kitchen, combined with a cat's crying. When she had relented and opened the door, there was Tabitha, sitting meekly on the step, beautifully groomed and over-thin, with a look of Judith about her.

Judith had been the Maywater cat, so called because she had been famous at the Manse for decapitating anything she killed, be it mice, voles, rabbits, rats, and leaving the heads lovingly on the doormat. She had been white, except for her paws and the tips of her ears and tail, all of which were brown and gave the impression she had been daubed with paint. They had loved her, Carl most of all, averring in after years that his love of all God's 'little creatures' came from watching Judith stalking something. He would have poured over the little decapitated bodies if mother hadn't been such a good housekeeper.

They had hated to leave Judith, but Aunt Martha had been firm and said that in any case it was no good trying to move a cat, it only found its way back to its old home. So Judith had been solemnly handed over to Mrs. McKinnley next door, and they learned of her through her father's return visits to Maywater, and knew that she was hale and hearty as ever, aided in her adventures by kittens Samson and Apocrypha.

It was Rosemary that had restored a cat to the Manse, late in her first summer there, after hearing about Judith. That cat had been a Silver Bush cat, deeply black and called Glossop, rechristened Cinders by Faith because it seemed more suitable. He was not an especially memorable cat, save for his trick of getting into queer places without anyone realizing until too late. Una had found him once in the dolly-tub, but only after pouring the first lot of water in. He had been replaced by Stripey, who had always been Bruce's cat, such a dear cat, Una thought now, looking at the mild-mannered thing on the doorstep. And of course, after Stripey had come Moggie, who Rosemary said, was a great talker, once you got her started.

Una thought of all this now, looking at the handsome if underfed cat on the front doorstep, and opened the door wider. Tabitha had cocked her head, eyes large, much to say, 'only if you say I may,' and Una had said, 'in you come then,' and gone to make up a saucer of cream. After that, Tabitha's shyness left completely. She had her own ideas about whom the kitchen belonged to and was vocal about them. She did not care a bit that Una was in the middle of making up a batch of plum jam and tucked herself contentedly under the stove.

When Shirley came down to supper, he found her curled up on the back of the drawing room sofa and said only, 'who's this then?' as he bent to scratch her ears. Una, portioning out slices of pie said, 'I don't know, I've been thinking of her as the tabby with the fine eyes all day. I think she may have adopted us.' Tabitha chose this moment to open her eyes, which were just the blue of the sky in twilight, and stretched lazily.

'She has got fine eyes,' Shirley said laughing. 'They're almost your colour, it's uncanny. But can't she have a name that's less of a mouthful?'

She was 'Tabitha' ever after that.

* * *

Adopt them she had. Three weeks later, Una found her at the front door, for Tabitha would use the front door, even if no one else did, with a half-dead kitten in her mouth. She laid it determinedly at Una's feet and said, 'she's not quite dead yet; do something.' Una only folded her arms and said, 'how many more have you got hidden out there Tabby? This is a dear house, but it isn't a _big_ house.'

She wasn't Tabitha's kitten either, reflected Una as she scooped it up to take into the kitchen. Tabitha was a lovely golden-brown tabby cat and the kitten was aspiring to be tortoiseshell but had too much white in her to succeed. She made up a saucer of cream, but the kitten wouldn't drink it and in the end, Una fetched down one of the syringes that she sometimes used to manipulate piping and fed her that way. Tabitha swished her tail with approval; whether this was because Una had taken on the kitten or because she herself got another saucer of cream out of it was debatable.

Mary came round to tea that day to find the kitten asleep on one of the kitchen chairs.

'Not another one?' She said laughing.

'I had to do something about her. Tabitha brought her in and just _looked_ at me until I did.'

'One thing you can be sure of,' said Mary, 'and that is that there never was a more spoiled cat than your Tabitha this side of eternity. Last time I was round you were deboning fish for her.'

'She'd choke if I didn't, and what I didn't give her was going into sauce anyway, so the bones would have had to come out in any case. Incidentally, in your rendering of the hereafter, is it God or the angels that have care of a cat?' Mary relocated the almost-tortoiseshell and sat down to wait for tea.

'You tell me,' says Mary archly, 'it's your Heaven I'm picturing to myself. If you say there isn't a cat in it then I won't believe you.' The kitten, wanting to be near people, tried to seek Una out in the kitchen.

'Now look,' said Una, gathering it up in her arms, 'you can have any room in the house for your own, but not this one.' So saying, she kissed the kitten and set it down; it wandered amiably off in the direction of the steps.

'You'll regret telling her that,' said Mary ominously.

* * *

If she had married anyone else, Una thought afterwards, she might have done, for the room Miriam, as the cat was called in due course, sought out, was the box room where Shirley spent long hours negotiating sums. But Miriam, it transpired, was a perfectly silent cat. Wherever Tabitha had rescued her from, and they never did find out, something had happened that rendered Miriam mute. She was a beautiful purrer, but when she opened her mouth to mew as Tabitha did, she made no noise. When she wanted something, she simply knocked against the nearest person or object until someone took notice. Consequently, she became quite a favourite with Shirley, sitting quietly at the back of his chair, trying by degrees to push him out of it, but always comfortably silent. It was rather, he remarked one crisp October day over lunch, like having a hot water bottle that loved you.

Much as she loved Miriam, Una was relieved when Tabitha showed no further signs of bringing kittens home. Greengage Close was a small house, and the only reason they managed to accommodate two such territorial cats was because Tabitha was something of a hunter. One morning Una opened the door to find her with a rabbit in her mouth. She was about to come in when Una closed the door slightly, folded her arms and said,

'Not until you put that poor, dead rabbit down Tabby. _Outside_, outside, that's right,' and Tabitha had laid it lovingly under the front room windows. It was with a great air of hurt feelings that she entered the house.

'I was bringing you a treat,' she said as she brushed past Una, 'and you wouldn't let me.' And she would not have the cream Una put out for her.

* * *

'I knew she wasn't so different to Judith,' she told Rosemary over tea.

'I can't begin to imagine,' said Rosemary, 'what I would do if Bruce's Moggie tried to bring in anything, even a mouse. But a _rabbit_.'

'It wasn't quite so bad as the birds. We had swifts nesting in the plum tree until she found them out, would you believe it. I hated finding their little bodies under the tree. Mind you, Judith _ate_ them. Tabitha just kills them for me.'

'You particularly?' said Rosemary laughing.

'Really. She slipped by Shirley the other day with a mouse and came and laid it down at my feet. She looked so pleased, and then she came and clambered onto my mending as if she had done me the greatest favour she could. It was all I could do not to laugh. I gave her the chair and put the mouse out. Then I asked him how he'd come to let her bring it in at all.'

Rosemary thought of Bruce's Moggie, who she had left sleeping by the hearth, and was grateful she was so domesticated.

'It wouldn't matter if she weren't,' said Una with a laugh. 'That cat of Bruce's wouldn't know what to do if a mouse came up to bell it, probably she would help it tie the ribbon.'

'Probably,' said Rosemary only a little doubtful.

'Have you heard from Jerry at all?' she asked now to change the subject.

'Not Jerry,' said Una, but I gather from Rilla that the sooner Nan has that baby the better it will be. And she didn't look at all well the last time I was over in Lowbridge. She's so little, Rosemary, and the baby…Jem says it's all quite normal but I can't believe it's safe.'

'You might ask Persis,' says Rosemary helpfully, 'she's been learning all sorts of things that way while she's been abroad.'

'I know,' says Una now, 'her letters are full of it. But Rosemary, I'm afraid to ask her.'

Rosemary nodded, she said only, 'so am I dearest.'


	6. Through the Tender Mercies of God

They did not have to wait long after that on Nan's baby, or babies as it later transpired. It was a grisly day at the end of October that nothing could redeem. Tabitha would not go out, and the fire would not stay lit and even the rain could not make it's mind up to be rain. There was a headache threatening to strike at the base of Una's temples. The call came through from the Upper Glen that the baby was coming, Faith was going with Jem, would Una come too? She would, she knew instinctively that she would never forgive herself if Jerry should need her and she wasn't there, headache or not. In that case they would call round for her. Miriam, sensing comfort was needed, threaded her way between Una's legs, and Una gathered her up, looked into the depths of those glowing green eyes and said, 'look after the others for me, won't you.' Jem found her waiting by the rode as he drew up to the house.

There had been no waiting between Jerry's ringing and Jem going out. Faith had rung while he started the car; the detour to Greengage Close hadn't taken two minutes. And yet that did nothing to change the fact that Jem found on arriving that he had a hellish choice to make… and he put off making it. Jerry paced the length of the front room, Jem put a call through to Ingleside, and Jerry tried to look relieved when Dr. Gilbert Blythe arrived to help; he did not feel it. And Jem _did_ look grey.

They had a hard time of it. Jem looked up at the sister he loved and thought, _I love her too much; I cannot do this_, and he saw his father thinking it to. Only then did Jem go down to the drawing room and say to Jerry,

'If you tell me to Jerry…I'll do it…but she matters too much to me. If you don't make me…' Jerry put his head in his hands and said,

'God forgive me Jem, I care too much too.'

'I can't, you've got to understand, I can't help both of them.'

'Then for heaven's sake,' said Jerry fiercely, 'for heaven's sake look after her.'

Jerry had gone into the kitchen, where his sisters were hovering, in the hopes that Una would have made tea. He needed it just then. Faith smiled at him reassuringly, hadn't she done this before herself? But Una looked at him and knew, and she flew to him and held him close before sitting him down and handing him a cup of hot, sweet tea. In the still of the kitchen and the silence of his heart, he blessed her for it.

* * *

At least after that, as Jem would later reflect on it, he knew what he was supposed to be doing. He would not think of the way his sister would look at him, it was too awful to think about. He reached for the child that was causing so much trouble and wished he had Shirley there to help, because hadn't he always gone down to Avonlea to help Uncle Davey with the Autumn Calving at Green Gables? There wasn't really much difference, Jem thought now, finding the child's head…no it's ankle…surely its head…and then he saw what the trouble was, or felt it, and knew why he could do nothing about it. They were joined, these babies, -_hadn't Una said the baby looked too big? -_ awkwardly, the ankle of one pressed against the other's head; one would always be born breach. If he could only get them out… and suddenly he had, and was able to cut them apart; it was only a quirk of the skin of the boy that they had been joined like that. They were terribly blue. Una crept in and Jem was never more grateful than he was to her in that moment as she looked at those blue babies and said, 'Can I help at all, Jem?'

He handed her the girl, because blue or not, she looked the healthier twin. Una turned the child onto it's back and hit her hard, _breathe_, she hissed, but did not really say. And the girl on her lap made no sound. She hit her again, with the heal of her hand, as she would bread she was working, _breathe_, and she thought it fiercely, because she could feel Nan watching her, felt herself enveloped in Nan's silent _what is wrong with my child_? She bent over the girl, as if she were going to kiss her, Jem thought she would kiss her, and covered it's nose with her mouth, but there was nothing to draw out, so she turned the child over again and tried for the third time, to hit life into it. Never did it occur to Jem to wonder who had taught Una what to do with such a blue baby. Goodness knew no one had taught him –he ought to have handed her the boy too. There was no doing anything about that boy now, if there ever had been. But the girl in Una's arms would not breathe, would not wail. Una closed her eyes, sent up a quick prayer to whatever God was listening and said with a calmness that she did not possess,

'Nan, do you have an earring I can borrow?'

Persis had written her of this. Una had never tried it and she was hoping to God and Heaven both that it would work. Never, Una thought, when she had read through Persis's curious letters, full to brimming with weird details and superstitions connected with 'catching children' had she thought she would need them herself. _Dead Needle trick_, Persis had called this, but an earring would do in a pinch.

It was a steady hand that accepted the earring Nan took from her night table. Una turned the child onto its back and just as steadily, pushed the sharp end of the earring into the girl's little arm. She felt so _cold_. Una could have wept when the earring came up clean, not even a hint of blood on it. She had thought it might, but it had been worth a try, to make absolutely sure…before she gave up completely on the child in her arms.

Nan, watching her, knew too. She looked across the room at her and her eyes said only _this isn't your fault_, which was a comfort to Una, who set now to meticulously washing both babies, and binding them up in clean linen, before handing them, blue but clean and warmed by the water, to their mother.

It was then that Jerry came in, and for a wild moment he swelled with hope, Jem had looked so grim, but perhaps after all…and then he took the tableau in, in its awful entirety. He saw the look in his wife's eyes and the stillness of Jem and the prayerfulness of his sister, who even now was leaving Nan's bedside so he could fill her place. She gave him the ghost of a hug and a fleeting kiss, saying, 'we really did try Jerry,' as she passed him.

* * *

Faith said, as Una regained the kitchen, 'I never knew such a quiet baby, did you?'

'I'm sure I don't know enough about it,' said Una with unintentional stiffness.

'But they were handsome babies, Faith, if only I could have coaxed her into breathing.' There was nothing else to say. She would not accept tea, but she sat at the table, turning her teacup round in her hands until Faith thought she should go mad from the silence and said,

'It wasn't for want of trying I'm sure.'

'I couldn't think what else to do…I tried all sorts of Persis's tricks, but they were dead to start with Faith…it wasn't any good…and she wouldn't breath.'

Faith came and sat by her sister and rubbed her back.

Jem came down and joined them. He did want tea and Faith put the kettle on.

'You may have missed your calling,' Jem said to Una, because he could not bear the thick, tense silence in the kitchen.

'You ought to have been a nurse. You knew more about what to do than I did.' Una shook her head.

'Persis has been learning all sorts of queer things and writing to me about them. It's a shame none of them would work for me.'

'At least you were trying,' said Jem.

'Of the two of us, Nan had more faith in you, and rightly so. She watched you like a hawk, Una.'

'I know. And I wish…'

'So do I,' said Jem heavily. 'I feel sick because I couldn't let her go. If I could have done…'

'Jerry wouldn't have forgiven you in a hurry if you had,' said Faith, who was only now beginning to realize how badly things had gone. If she had realized sooner, gone up with her sister…but then Jerry would have been alone and that wouldn't have done any good either. Una was nodding. The kettle whistled and they all jumped. Una took it over, and the teapot, and things began to feel less askew.

'Someone ought to call Ingleside,' said Una as she poured out. Faith nodded; Jem grimaced.

'I never even thought.'

'I'll do it,' said Faith, feeling she hadn't done nearly enough to be useful. Hadn't she once been a nurse? But if it came to that, it was usually Una's lot to minister to people's nerves, not hers. Faith decided that that day had been fated to be a sideways one. She picked up the phone.

'Tell them not to come all at once,' said Una, and this time it was Jem who nodded.

* * *

Rilla and her mother came down with Shirley, and Gilbert met them as they came in. He was going home. Between Jem and Una –why had no one sent her up sooner? –they no longer needed him, and he could not bear to see his child so unhappy. Shirley crept into the kitchen and took Una's hands in his. He murmured something and she answered, but Faith caught none of it. Nor did Rilla, engaged in locating a teacup.

'I thought I'd leave mother to talk to her for a while,' Rilla says now. Then, looking at Una, 'why did none of us listen to you when you said something wasn't right?'

'We had no way of knowing,' says Una, feeling more herself now that there were other people to look after.

'You said Nan was too small, for the baby,' Jem reminds her.

'Any doctor with half a brain should have seen you were right.'

'It wasn't only you that missed it,' Faith reminds him. After that they do not talk and the silence ceases to feel awful. Anne comes down, looking tired and careworn, her eyes far away in the memory of her own little girl of long ago; _but at least_, she finds herself thinking, _at least Joy was alive, however briefly. I could never have been so brave as Nan_.

She sits down by Rilla and says,

'They are to be called Matthew and Cecilia –Nan says those were the names they had put by and I don't think she or Jerry could bear to use them again…'

'Of course not,' says Una gently.

'They are good names,' Faith says softly,

'Miss Cornelia would say they will wear well,' says Rilla, and she takes her mother's hand in hers.

'And they are to burry them in the garden…they will be able to see them there,' Anne says very quietly.

They do not stay long after this. Rilla does, and Anne too, but the others begin to go home, worried they have already stayed too long. Jerry comes to see them out and he shakes Jem's hand and kisses Una as she goes, forestalling her saying, 'Nan told me how hard you tried to make our little girl live. She said you practically willed her too. Thank-you.'

'I'm only sorry I couldn't do more,' she says, but Jerry shakes his head.

'You did everything you possibly could and no one can do more than that.'

* * *

When they arrive home there is casserole on the stove and Una looks dubiously at Shirley.

'Susan brought it round. She didn't think you'd want to cook.'

Nor does she, but she hovers over it and stirs it, to see if it has caught on the pot, debating whether she ought to tell him that while there's nothing wrong with leaving a baked casserole in the oven, you don't leave one on the stove-top. But it has been too long a day, and no harm has been done. She sits down at the table and the headache she has kept at bay all day is upon her with a vengeance, and with it comes a wave of dizziness. Tabitha gives her a look that says,

'You went away and no one fed me,' but she comes and curls up at Una's feet all the same. Miriam climbs up into her lap and showers her with little kisses, she says,

'I know something is wrong, but I still love you,' so that Una, reaching to stroke her, is able to quietly count her blessings. Shirley says grace and she slips in an unspoken prayer for the souls of Matthew and Cecilia Meredith as he does so, and finds it helps.

* * *

** It is worth noting that the scene describing the twins and how awkwardly they are joined is heavily influenced by Ann-Marie MacDonald's _Fall on Your Knees_ -another good, Canadian book. I assure you it does look up after this, I think on the whole, this story comes out fairly balanced in terms of happy and unhappy things, so please do not abandon it on that count. The title, should it be of interest, is lifted out of the office for the Dead._  
_**


	7. Wishing a Dream

**I realize Wednesday's instalment was less than cheerful, so here is the next chapter on a bit early in compensation.**

* * *

For a long time after the little blue babies are buried, the family treads softly with Nan. No one is quite sure of the best thing to say or do. Anne is often at Lowbridge, and by tacit agreement, Rilla, Una and Faith continue the rotary pattern they developed in the months leading up to the babies' arrival. Nan does not object, is in fact, quietly glad of the company, but she will not let them coddle her. Bread making, she says one afternoon to Faith, is highly therapeutic.

Very early on, Jerry had got up in the thin hours of the morning, so his mother had always described the first watery hours of daylight, and said into the mouthpiece of the phone,

'This is an emergency. Please put a call to New Brunswick, Burnt Church, R. Harris…'

The call had been put through and forty-five minutes later he was telling as much as he felt he could to Di, over that cursed open party line, not knowing or caring who listened. It had been awful. Telling her had made it so much more vivid. He saw again that weird, taunting tableau of what could have been, the late afternoon light streaming in through the window, turning the quilt to gold…Nan with a child in each arm. It did not help that as he spoke he was looking over the two soft rises in the back garden kissed by the Marigolds; 'orange button flowers', Una had called them in girlhood. That memory was a happy one and he clung to it, reviving all Una's old, queer names for the things in his mother's garden; and that is why Di has to repeat herself.

'Is Nan awake, Jerry?'

'She might be now, I could go look.'

'Would you? I'd like to talk to her.'

Jerry tells the operator to hold the line. Nan is up, she is looking out the window 'dreaming the day' she used to tell him. He wonders if she would still say it. But she takes his arm and lets him lead her downstairs into the kitchen, and picks up the phone to resume the call. She talks to her sister a long time. Jerry is not worried what the bill or it will look like, he would give Heaven and Earth and the life hereafter if he thought it would restore the Dresden-china woman in the chair by the phone to the laughing, fancy-full girl he brought home to the Lowbridge Manse.

'Do you want me to come home?' Di says, and she is anxious not because she is unwilling, but because for the first time in her life she feels she can do nothing to smooth over life's creases for her sister.

'No, no that wouldn't be fair on you. And you couldn't do anything the others aren't. They're very good to me, Di.'

Di doesn't doubt this, but sometimes it's nice to have the people we're closest to, even if they can only offer a little.

'No, no I'm sure Di. There's no sense taking the order out of your life as well as mine. Goodness knows the others are at sixes and sevens too, though they never say. No, you stay where you are, and think of me only when the sun comes up on a good day, and I'll know you're thinking and be glad. Maybe wish me a dream like we used to. Do you remember?'

Di does. It is an odd phrase, and it would have no meaning for anyone else. Long ago now, when they had been young enough to sleep curled up like kittens round each other, Nan had woken her sister out of a nightmare and whispered nonsenses to her until she was calmer. They had worried the bad dream out and Di remembers saying,

'I don't want to go back to sleep. It might be bad again.'

'I'll wish you a dream,' Nan had said, and it had been implicit she meant a good dream. Of course it was silly, but they had said it to each other long after they outgrew girlhood, when the nightmare became a thing to be lived through and waking a long way off. So Di finds herself saying now, sitting by the stove in the Harris house, more miles away than she has digits to count with,

'I'll wish you a dream, dearest, and you will have it soon. But promise you'll be in touch if the dream feels to far away to wait for alone.'

Nan promises. Then she puts the phone down and turning to Jerry, says,

'Thank you for doing that. It was good to talk to her.'

There is something about the look in her eyes and the quirk in her mouth that makes him send a prayer up to Heaven and to God.

_Into thy hands O Lord, I commend her spirit, and mine also, for life has been like a shattered vessel, but I have put my trust in you; make haste now to deliver me, but especially her_. He is vaguely aware that he is mangling the psalms dreadfully. But they are such tangible things in prayerful moments. He said once to his father, 'you can talk to God in the psalms.' He would say it yet.

* * *

'Nan is looking well,' says Faith to Una over tea shortly after this. It is one of those rare afternoons when neither of them is bound by commitments, music lessons, jam and Faith's first aide sessions having contrived to fall to one side, and Rilla is round at Lowbridge. Rarer still, Faith is enjoying playing host, a thing she has not had the luxury of doing since Walter was born. But now he is big enough that he tumbles about at their feet, not quite getting underfoot, more interested in the pattern on the hearthrug.

'Jerry said he rang Di and they talked a long time. I imagine that was a help,' says Una, measuring out her portion of the milk.

'A good thought, and I'm glad Jerry had it. Why do you suppose no one rang before?' Faith in her turn cuts two slices of Bishop's Bread and hands one to her sister.

'I suppose we took it for granted Nan would ring her. I know I did.'

Faith makes a non-committal noise and swallows her opinion with her cake; she suspects it would be out of place if she voiced it, even to Una. All the same, she privately wonders why Di had to be called at all; surely she ought to have rung to find out about the baby?

At that moment, Walter reminds them he is there by toppling the sugar dish onto Folly, Dalmatian and long-standing resident of the Upper Glen house. Faith and Jem had acquired her with the house, along with Felix, her smaller and liver-spotted companion, and the Blythes of the Upper Glen had never worked out the relationship of the dogs to one another, if there was one at all. They were simply Folly and Felix, and they had always been treated with a certain amount of respect. Consequently, Walter's carful manipulation of the sugar dish had provoked a yelp from the unsuspecting dog, who Faith now reached instinctively for in the ensuing confusion. Walter leapt, meaning to extract a cuddle from the put-upon dog, like it or no, and Folly, for her part, prepared to lunge at the coffee table. Faith pulled Folly into her lap with some difficulty, and Una, with much less, scooped up her nephew, handed him a piece of the Bishop's Bread and said gently but firmly,

'You sit quietly with me for a while, love,' and Walter, who was not given to sitting quietly if he could help it, snuggled against his aunt to eat his piece of cake. Faith thought two things then, as she soothed Folly into quiescence; in the first place, she had failed to notice what a knack her sister had with children, probably because seeing her with Bruce had acclimatized her to the fact. In the second, there was a look in Una's eye that Faith was certain had not been there a month ago. She did not say so; if Una had not said then she had not realized, and it was hardly Faith's place to make her do so.

'He's got your energy Faith,' Una says when they have gathered up the sugar-cubes between them and Walter has settled to building a block tower as high as possible. This it turns out is not very high, because Folly has deemed her job in all of this to be the nosing over of the blocks as and when she deems appropriate. Faith fervently hopes they continue so for the remainder of the visit.

'It will make for a good story,' says Faith and they laugh.

'It could have been worse. Do you remember when Cinders tried to present Mrs. Alec Davies with a live mouse?'

'As if I'd ever forget. I suppose I ought to be grateful it was you that was round this afternoon. I can think of more than a handful of neighbours who wouldn't have taken it at all in their stride.'

'Do the neighbours have children?'

'Well –but most of them have had, if they haven't now. They certainly don't understand them so well as you do. What made you think of the cake?'

'Susan was always giving us cake,' says Una by way of deflecting the compliment. _She means it too_, Faith thinks, and to be fair, Susan Baker had frequently presented them with some baked treat, but never in Faith's memory, as a diversionary tactic. She looks across at her sister again; no, she wasn't mistaken about the look in her eye.

But she says only, 'have another cup of tea,' and for the second time that afternoon, pours out and plays mother.

* * *

**I have an idea that 'thin hours' are not my invention but cannot for the life of me think where I have borrowed them from; if anyone has any idea who or what I ought to be citing here, do tell me, it isn't for want of looking.**


	8. Playing Mother

**HMA -I am flattered you think this reads like a continuation of Montgomery. I always feel my major failing is that I'm not a bit like her (Tiny Teddy, I think you once said something similar so thank you also - I didn't not notice, I was just spectacularly remiss). I'm glad to hear the characters sound and seem right…they've become very real to me, especially Nan and Jerry, who, incidentally, I didn't set out to write about.**

* * *

When Rosemary calls at Greengage Close, late into November, she takes one look at Una and says, by way of greeting, 'dearest, you look as if you're going to faint, are you all right?' and steers her forcibly into the drawing room and onto the sofa.

'I feel as if I might,' says Una, who has not two hours ago deflected Shirley on the same topic but feels, as ever, she can talk to Rosemary. She closes her eyes fractionally and Rosemary says, 'shall I leave you and come back?'

She has no plans to follow through any such suggestion, but she feels she ought to ask. Una feels, just as firmly, that she could never accept such an offer, even if Rosemary meant it. Rosemary is displaying too many signs of meaning to play mother in ways far from limited to pouring out the tea for Una to take her seriously.

'At least let me make the tea then,' says Rosemary now, and Una agrees, because she is several degrees of sure she will drop something, probably the kettle of boiling water, if she tries to do anything. Besides, it is not always a bad thing to be mothered. She curls up into a corner of the sofa and Tabitha twines herself round her shoulders.

That is how Rosemary finds her when she comes back through with the tea tray, and she has half a mind to leave her like that and get on with housework or anything that might make Una's day easier. The trouble is that a glance over the drawing room, and the trip into the kitchen make it clear that very little needs doing. Instead she touches Una's shoulder and presses a cup of sweet tea into her hands.

'I know you don't put in much sugar, but it will help clear your head,' she says. Una takes it and does not even grimace at the sweetness, Una who only ever had half a sweet tooth to start with. It is at this point that Rosemary begins to feel uneasy.

'Are you sure you're all right?'

'No, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been prone to fainting,' says Una, and she smiles at Rosemary.

'Una, for the love of all that's dear, how long has this been going on?'

'I was thinking of the Good Conduct Club,' Una says and laughs, to her almost-mother's sincere relief.

'But now you mention it, I've really no idea.' The relief is gone as it has come.

'What do you mean you don't know?' says Rosemary. It is in the back of her mind that it is likely nothing serious, that she herself associates dizziness with…she looks at the girl curled up with the cat on her shoulders and pours out another cup of tea, and puts in only slightly less sugar.

'You're thinking. What are you thinking?' says Una as she takes the teacup from her stepmother.

'I'm thinking you still haven't answered me properly,' which is only half-untrue, Rosemary reflects.

'It isn't all of the time, it just comes and goes, and it has done for a while. I don't remember when it started. Last month maybe? Nan and the children and…so many things…I forgot about it, I suppose.'

Now Rosemary does relax properly, because everything Una is telling her fits with her own memories of dizziness.

'You don't think,' Rosemary says cautiously, reaching for words, not wanting at all to have this conversation if she can help it, 'it might be worth paying attention to?'

That isn't what she had set out to say, but so help her, she and Una are two of a kind about feelings and things that are not to be talked about.

'No, it's only this week that I've really noticed, or anyone else has, come to that. And it wouldn't be the first time if I were to faint, would it?'

'No-o, but that was from not eating. And I'd imagine that has nothing to do with this.' Una had not particularly thought about this, only that she remembered the sensation of her head swimming from that long-ago evening in childhood.

'You have an idea anyway,' says Una patiently, still nursing her cup of tea.

'It's at the corner of your mouth.'

Rosemary bites her lip and says quietly, and very gently,

'The only time I ever felt dizzy, and often, was when I was waiting on Bruce.'

The words do not register right away and when they do, Una shakes her head, no.

'You don't really think –?' she says and does not finish. She reaches for Tabitha and pulls her close. The memory of the little blue child in her lap floats in front of her eyes. A month is not such a long time as all that. Rosemary moves to sit beside her and gathers her up in her arms as she does so. Una lets her because it makes her feel small again and heightens the vast improbability of Rosemary's suggestion.

'You are worried. What are you worrying about? Tell me.'

And so, burrowed against Rosemary's side, Una does tell her. It is in this way Rosemary discovers quite how badly things had gone at Lowbridge; nobody had intentionally left her out, but no one had wanted to worry her either. Jerry had never talked to her over-much about feelings to begin with, he'd said even less about the babies. All Rosemary knew was that they hadn't lived, only now did she find out how complicated it had been, how much energy had been invested into their living. And why, for Heaven's sake, had no one told her how involved her Una had been in all of this? She has half an idea that Jerry had mentioned his sister; but he had not said anything about…well perhaps he hadn't wanted to talk about it.

'Oh love,' she says, and she hugs Una tighter and tucks stray hair behind her ear. 'Oh love, oh love. It must have been awful to realize nothing would work.'

'Worse for Nan,' says Una, relinquishing her hold on Tabitha, to that cat's relief.

'I wonder,' says Rosemary thoughtfully. 'But love, the chance of that happening again, to anyone…'

'All the same,' says Una, and she reaches for the teapot. This at least, is proof to Rosemary that Una is more herself, and so she does not intervene in the pouring of the tea.

'It will be all right, I promise, love. And it will be worth it.'

'You know, you may yet be wrong,' says Una, although she realizes as she says it that she does not wholly mean it. There is an extent to which Rosemary's suggestion has frightened her, but she is equally aware that Rosemary is right when she says it is worthwhile, acutely aware that she wants Rosemary to be right. All of this passes in a look, as Una hands Rosemary her teacup, and Rosemary looking at her, sees it pass and understands.

'Somehow,' she says and smiles, 'I'm certain I won't be.'

Long after Rosemary has gone and the washing up has been done, Una stands at the kitchen sink thinking. Miriam finds her out and winds round her ankles. She opens her mouth noiselessly and looks up at Una, 'what are you thinking?' she is trying to ask. Only as she picks Miriam up does it occur to Una that if Miriam has come down from upstairs, Shirley has probably put working by for the time being; Miriam is very much his cat. She has taken the injunction against the kitchen at face value, only coming in at odd moments, as now, to bestow a cat's idea of comfort. And then Shirley is there asking after Rosemary and is there any interesting news? More than he has any notion of.

'I had a letter from Persis,' Una says, 'she was writing to ask if we could have her and Carl here for Christmas. I didn't like to answer without asking.'


	9. Tabitha Again and the time for a Miracle

**I preface this with two things; as ever thank you for the reviews, and if there is ever anything I leave out that you'd like to read about, I am always wanting an excuse to spend more time with these characters. The second thing is that the anecdote about Tabitha is drawn from real life; she is a composite of three cats, one my own, the other two country-bred things prone to all kinds of adventures.**

* * *

Persis comes sweeping back into their lives full of energy and eagerness to be useful. If Carl is more staid, it is only because he has always been so.

'You might have told me about the mice,' says Persis to tease Una one afternoon. Una is preoccupied with trying to negotiate how coffee beans work –they were a gift from Mary on the off chance that there was ever company who didn't take tea –and Persis is just such a person.

'I rather thought you knew,' says Una a bit helplessly. 'I did wonder if…'

'I don't mean it, really,' says Persis with laughter in her mouth, and she adds, 'anyway, I can see there are to be no mice _here_.'

'Oh dear, has Tabitha brought something in? Not a newt? If it's a newt I'll have to go hunting for it's tail…they drop them you know, when they're frightened.'

'Is this in case I doubted you were really Carl's sister or what? I haven't found any newts…yet. I thought that cat had the look of a hunter about her. I ought to know, we've seen our share.'

'I'm sure you have,' Una says, still working at the coffee beans.

'Give those to me,' says Persis; taking the coffee as she says it, 'I've done it before.'

Una does not argue, she cannot make top, tail or middle of the coffee. Instead she puts the kettle on because one way or another she is going to need hot water.

'You know,' says Persis when the coffee has finally settled, 'you gave Carl the surprise of his life when you wrote about the wedding.'

'Did I? I didn't mean to. We talked about putting things off till you could be there but no one was sure when you would be back.'

'Nonsense. You've had more than your share of waiting. And if you had delayed, where would we have gone to stay?' Una smiles her thanks; somewhere in a book of poetry, she had long ago underlined Milton's _they also serve who only stand and wait_, because her father had used to say it to her. But serving or not, you can have too much of waiting.

'We would have had you at the Manse, you know that, and Rilla wouldn't have hesitated either.'

'This is much nicer,' says Persis unconcernedly, she is the sort of person who can say anything without causing offence.

'I'm hopeless with children, mother could tell you that, unless of course I can hand them off at the end of the day, and I could never feel quite comfortable at the Manse. Something about…'

'About it being a minister's house?' Una swallows her laughter. She might have expected that from anyone else, but not Persis.

'You don't mind do you? I suppose you used to hear things like that rather a lot?'

'I hear a good deal more now. I told Shirley once, and I meant it, that over the course of growing up, the Glen got the idea it couldn't tell Faith and I things because we were the minister's children. But they've forgotten now I'm not living there.' Persis does laugh.

'Well you can't blame them. You fit their notion of a minister's daughter.'

'I didn't used to, do you remember?'

Before Persis can say anything they are interrupted by the sound of something screaming blue murder in the kitchen.

'What in Heaven's name is that?' Persis says, as if this were the sort of thing that happened every day. Possibly it is, Una thinks as she looks into the kitchen. She herself says, 'Tabitha you _haven't_,' and looks about wildly for something to suit her purpose, preferably long and pole-like.

'Hasn't what?' says Persis, coming to join Una in the doorway. Una mutters darkly, 'Heaven and all its Saints preserve us,' and retreats to the cupboard under the stairs to root about in it.

'I can just about cope,' she says, surfacing a broom, 'with dead things. And I thought,' this over her shoulder to the scene unfolding on the kitchen table, 'rabbits burrowed in the winter.'

'You would think,' says Persis, with suppressed mirth.

'But a _live _one Tabitha, really.' She moves tentatively into the kitchen to see what can actually be done. It would be one thing, Una thinks, if Tabitha had just dropped the rabbit, as she has done so many things, and gone out again. If that were all, Una could shepherd the live rabbit out of the house. As it is, she is perched on the kitchen table merrily killing an unsuspecting rabbit, found Goodness knows how and Heaven knows where. It would be a kindness, Una thinks, as she puts the broom away, to let Tabitha get on with it, intervening will only result in a maimed animal that will crawl off to die anyway.

All of this happens in the space of not quite two minutes, so that Shirley comes down the stairs as Una closes the cupboard door for the last time.

'What in the name of…' he begins, but only finishes, 'oh. Would it help if I went out and buried it?'

'Eventually,' says Una, now sitting on the edge of her chair and gripped with a queasiness that has nothing to do with Rosemary having been right and everything to do with the sound of the rabbit screaming and the sight on the kitchen table.

'It will be neater and faster if I take over, I think. Cats have a horrid habit of playing with things smaller than them.'

'If that rabbit's smaller than your Tabitha, pigs can fly,' says Persis. This deters Shirley not a wit from forcibly retrieving Tabitha and handing her over to Una, who refuses to coddle her. Having done this, he picks up the rabbit in one hand and retrieves a good knife from the kitchen drawer and goes outside. If there is any more screaming, they do not hear it.

'What am I going to do with you?' Una says to the cat in her lap. Tabitha looks at her beseechingly.

'Well, if you promise never to do that again,' she says, and condescends to pet her. Persis can bear no more and bursts out laughing.

'And you were worried about newts!'

'She's never done that before,' says Una, more relieved than she can say that it was Persis who happened to be visiting at the time.

'I got that impression,' Persis says and grins. In response, Una sets the cat down and goes through to the kitchen to boil more water.

'There's still coffee in the pot,' Persis assures her, helping herself as she says it; something to drink is not a bad idea.

'I'm getting good hot water to take to that table. And when I've done that I'll make up a pot of tea.'

'She and Carl are related, all right,' says Persis to Tabitha, her conversation swallowed by the kettle's whistle.

'It's not everyone that looks at the inside of a rabbit and decides the best course of action is to clean it up. It's all you can do, of course, but don't you think the Blythe girls would have been hysterical over it?' Tabitha, sensing a friend, leaps up into Persis's lap and says, 'Of course I think so, why do you think I chose to come _here_?'

When Carl returns from his excursion to the Manse, he says, 'did I miss anything?'

'Nothing you want to know about before eating,' says Una firmly.

'Oh , I don't mind,' he says gamely.

'I do,' his sister says, and that is the end of that.

When Persis tells him later, he is equal parts horrified, impressed and unbelieving.

'No wonder Una didn't want to talk about it over supper,' is his only comment. Secretly he hopes there will be a sequel. Una hopes earnestly that Tabitha's destruction of the rabbit will be the height of the Christmas dramatics.

* * *

To Susan Baker's immense relief, there is snow in the week leading up to Christmas, and it is the kind of snow that settles comfortably onto the ground for a long visit.

'A green Christmas means a full churchyard, Mrs. Dr. Dear, and that you may tie too,' she says as she rolls out the pastry for mince pies.

'But there's no danger of that now, so all is well with the world Is Di _quite _sure she can't get away?'

'Quite sure,' says Anne, more than a little regretfully. 'But she sends her love and assures me there is a hamper of parcels on its way.'

'I suppose the Almighty knows what he is about,' says Susan, 'but be that as it may, I do think it a shame she should be on her own with a strange family.'

'They're hardly strangers now, Susan' says Anne smiling. 'She's been with them since mid-September, and she says there are four children under six and another one due with the New Year. Their mother must have been beside herself, managing on her own. Just think Susan, that would have been like my trying to bring up Jem, Walter and the twins without you.' Susan snorts.

'Your children aren't so close together as that, Mrs. Dr. Dear, and glad I am of too, you can be sure. Well, I won't grudge Mrs. R. Harris our Diana, though I don't know her from Adam. And to be sure, Di was always knacky with house-things in a way Nan wasn't, though once Nan learned a thing I daresay she could do it beautifully and to the letter, and Di didn't need to put her mind to it the way dear Rilla did either. With her it was a sort of instinct.' Susan stops mixing up the filling for her pies and for a moment simply stands picturing all the girls she has taught to cook and keep house. Yes, whoever Mrs. R. Harris may be, she is lucky in having Dianna Blythe to help her.

* * *

Jerry, watching the snow worriedly, thinks there is too much of it. He has been trying to work out how to manage Christmas for a long while; he is determined Nan should be with her family and equally certain it would be wrong to hand the Christmas Eve service over to a visiting clergyman. He remembers Rosemary saying once that the Episcopal Church employed assistant clergy in such instances, but the Presbyterians have not that luxury and Jerry is Presbyterian. But now, watching the snow come down, he wonders how he is to get even as far as the church if this keeps up. He picks up the phone to put a call through to the Glen and finds he cannot; the line is dead. He is so wrapped up in trying to work the problem out that he fails to hear Nan come into the room.

'What are you thinking?' she says now.

'I am wondering how we are ever to make Christmas Eve work,' he says, without realizing he has said it. He hadn't wanted to worry her.

'But that's easy, we'll go after you've taken the service here,' she says, and he wonders why he hasn't thought of this himself.

'You'll miss supper with your family,' he says apologetically.

'I don't think I could eat very much anyway. And if you're really that worried about it, I know they'd wait if we asked.'

'You'll have to write and ask,' he says, handing her the telephone. She listens for the operator, and when she does not her one, takes a minute to process what has happened.

'Well, they will have to fix it sooner rather than later,' says Nan.

'If not, it will be an adventure, won't it?' Jerry rather thinks he's had his share of adventures for the time being.

And when Christmas Eve draws ever nearer, he begins to think Nan may be right, and they will have a quiet Christmas in Lowbridge coloured by ghosts and well-meaning parishioners. Jerry cannot decide if they are an improvement or otherwise on the 'difficult' ones, and there are always a few that are difficult. The well-meaning set quietly conclude that they must augment the self-made rotary of Nan's sisters, and take it upon themselves to inundate the house with casseroles. Jerry feels sure no one cooks anything else, unless it is soup; and there is nothing wrong with either of these things in moderation, but they have lived off of nothing else since Stir Up Sunday, when Nan made the Christmas pudding and fended off their next door neighbour, Mrs. Lewis's offer to do so for them. The pudding, always assuming they can get out of the house, was to be their contribution to the Ingleside Christmas, because there was no possible way that Susan was going to be allowed to feed the multitudes single-handed. Jerry knows that if they do stay in Lowbridge, they will probably be invited round to Mrs. Lewis's to spend the evening with her and the visiting sister, of whom they have heard so much. And while she is a lovely woman, and her sister is no doubt just as kind, this is the only prospect more cheerless than the thought of looking out the window all evening at the rises in their Manse's lawn.

It is with great relief then, that Jerry greets Norman Douglas, when he pounds furiously on the front door, early on the twenty-third of December and burst into the room like an avenging angel. He has come over at Faith's insistence, going to tell them that he will fetch them after the evening service at Lowbridge and bring them up to Ingleside in the old trap, always assuming the roads aren't clear by then.

'It would take a miracle,' says Jerry, 'to clear the road into the Glen overnight.'

'There never was a better time than Christmas,' says Norman Douglas, 'for a miracle. Except maybe Easter.' Somehow, Jerry succeeds at not laughing and offers his guest something hot, because it has dawned on him that Norman Douglas has come all this way by snowshoe and if the weather that came in with him is any judge, it is perishingly cold out.

'This is good of you,' says Norman Douglas, balanced precariously on the chair nearest the fire in the front room.

'You and your father are two of a kind for civilized ministers, and I still say those are as hard to come by as golden goose eggs. No, we've been lucky at the Glen, and if Lowbridge is half so sensible as it likes people to think, it will realize it is too.' He finishes the mug of cider Jerry has given him and says hopefully, 'I don't suppose there's any more?' There is and Jerry refills the mug.

'You're sure you don't mind?' he asks again and the man opposite him only laughs.

'Even if I did, I haven't got a choice, have I?' he says, eyes twinkling.

'I'll tell you, I was out clearing the walk to the house and your sister came up the road like a fury, with her boy bundled up to his ears and said Jem didn't like the idea of his sister snowbound with strangers for Christmas but couldn't see his way round it. Well, she could, and I was to go over for you after the service, because of course you had one to take, and I had one to go to –what a good thing you never caught Rosemary's God off her, eh? –if you had you'd be waiting up till the small hours to go church –and fetch you back to Ingleside. She'd worked it all out with Susan, and they would wait supper, and that was that. I _thought_ about saying no, but it would have taken a braver man than I am to put her off, I can tell you. And all the while that boy of hers sat in his chair, sound asleep, never even opened his eyes.'

Jerry can just picture Faith, for no one else but Ellen could have bullied Norman Douglas so remorselessly, as he has heard her described. He laughs.

'I'm grateful to you,' he says. 'Your coming all this way is enough of a miracle in itself. You've saved Nan and I a long evening hearing about every play Mrs. Lewis's sister acted in.' They both laugh, and their laughter brings Nan into the room. She lights up on hearing the news in a way Jerry has begun to forget was possible, and he feels doubly indebted, not only to Norman Douglas, but to Faith also.

'Do stay to supper,' says Nan, but Norman Douglas only laughs his deep throaty laugh and says, 'I would but Ellen will never forgive me if I'm late getting back. She's put a pie in the oven and promised to wait, but she won't if it so much as hints at being overdone.' With that he has gone, and Nan, coming and leaning her head on Jerry's shoulder, says, 'this year I think Christmas really has come early.'


	10. Wreath the Holly Twine the Bay

**Katherine-with-a-K, having told you I could not make the following scene fit, I think I have finally managed it. I maintain I am indebted to you for the thought, I never should have written this first section otherwise.**

* * *

It was a rare moment when Anne interrupted Gilbert's work, but she did late the afternoon of the 23rd of December, because he had been shut up for hours and had hardly said two words together all dinner.

'If it weren't such a mad idea,' she said gaily, 'I'd say you were dreading Christmas.'

'But I am,' he said and she brushed gaiety to one side for the time being.

'What's brought this on? Won't it be lovely to have Jem and his family to stay?' She lays a hand softly on his shoulder as she says it, half expecting to hear about a patient over-Harbour, maybe about Alec Craig's croup. She is entirely unprepared for the answer she gets instead.

'I've committed a sin, haven't I Anne-girl?'

She places her free hand on his other shoulder.

'Whatever do you mean?' and she presses his shoulders, with all of her weight behind the motion, as she says it.

'I have hurt my child, how am I ever to look at her over Christmas?' he disengages from her, slipping somehow out from under her hands, drawing himself inward.

'You have given me one less child to burry,' she says, coming and perching on the arm of his chair, 'I'm afraid I can't see the sin in that. Somehow I doubt Jerry will be able to either.'

At least, thought Anne now, worrying one of the little metal buttons on the chair arm, she knew what it was that had made him look so grey for months. Oh she had _known_, she understood him to well for that, but they had never talked about it. Somehow, in the whirl of life's dance and the hours at Lowbridge, there had never been time. Funny it should happen that way; when her children had all lived at home there had been no end of time for snatched conversations. Now they had gone and in trying to fill the time created by absence of mothering and ministering to those children, there was not enough time to talk of things that mattered.

'I promised to preserve life,' he says, to his shoes, because he has tucked his head, like an injured bird, against his chest and will not raise it.

'You have done, you must see that. Jerry said Jem made it very clear that there was a choice to be made, that you both made him make it.'

'But the look in her eyes Anne. I shall never forgive myself the look in her eyes. All I ever wanted to do was cradle her from the world, and I couldn't do even that much. Instead I've brought her horribly into its centre, brought grief, she never should have known what that was like.'

'You're forgetting dearest,' forcibly retrieving his hands and tucking hers into them, 'that the war rushed in long before you did. You brought her into the world a bright-eyed slip of a girl, do you remember? She was all laughter and poetry, and she still is, I think… I know. And then there was the awfulness that was the war –none of us could have prevented against that, Gilbert, however much we wanted to…and I wanted more than ever then to keep them all close to me, forever the laughing children of Rainbow Valley days. No, she was brought to the world's centre as you say, years ago now, they all were, and they shall never quite come back from it.'

'Then I've only made it worse,' he says, trying and failing, for all he is stronger than his wife, to retract his hands.

'Listen to me, it wasn't you, or Jem, or anyone. I'm her mother, don't you think I've wracked myself through and through for not noticing…intuiting, realizing, whatever you want to call it, that there was something wrong with my daughter that I missed? But even if I had done, what difference would it have made? Would we have sat up late nights, would they, debating whose life was to be weighed, handed over? Somehow, that's more awful to think of than the reality we've lived through, don't you think? There is no one to blame for horrible mistakes and impossible choices. It doesn't work like that. And she has Jerry to weather that storm with.'

'The Catholics would say…'

'What a mercy we're Presbyterian then,' she says firmly, the hint of a smile forming on her mouth.

'All the same, there wouldn't be a storm for them to weather if –'

'There is always a storm, Gilbert. You know this, I know this, and it's only that neither of us would wish one on any of our own if it was in our power to prevent it. But so help me, dearest, it isn't.'

'When was it, Anne-girl, that you got to be so wise?'

'By bearing out my own crosses, our storms, and you know this. Now,' says Anne, rising and pressing both his hands, 'come down and help me put tinsel on the tree. I will never reach the taller branches and Nan really won't forgive you if the tree isn't done up for tomorrow, especially after all the hoops she has had to jump through to be here.'

He is never quite sure afterwards how it was she turned such a sombre conversation into the stuff of poetry and fairy stories, but she had done. Assisted by Susan, they lace the tree with tinsel, candles and oranges stuffed with cloves, talking all the while of the little boys and how lovely it will be to have Walter and his family to stay over for Christmas that year.

* * *

As Nan remembered it, there was something of real magic in that carriage-ride from the church up to Ingleside. To ride in a carriage had a glorious old-world feeling to it that bespoke a softer, rosier world. She drew the thick rug close around her and leaned against Jerry, as the stout little horse at the reigns moved noiselessly through the snow.

There were candles at all the windows at Ingleside, and more baking than there had been, even before the war. Looking across the valley, Nan could see the candle left glowing in the Manse drawing room window, making it look homely and welcoming even when all it's people were away. For everyone who could be there was there, and so talkative and bustling that there wasn't time to miss Di.

Even if there had been, it would have been dissipated by the call that came through from Burnt Church, answered by Nan, which began, 'I've only got three minutes…' and ended with 'Happy Christmas.' It was enough time to hear about Norman Douglas and the carriage ride, the sermon Jerry had given, how little Alexander Abbot had been allowed to light the Christ Candle and had nearly set the wreath on fire. To the Ingleside end comes news of how Melinda Harris, age five had insisted on helping in the kitchen and had overturned the soup tureen, quite full, and so preoccupied Di that the goose had nearly gone to the table strings and all.

* * *

Privately, Una continued to feel there were too many people all at once. She migrated early to the window, apparently to watch the last of the Advent Candle burn out. Bruce climbed up onto the window ledge beside it and she said in spite of herself, 'careful love, you've a history with fire.' Bruce beamed at her, as only he could.

'It was only once,' he says, but he moves away from the flame to please her. Bruce wonders if it would be a bad thing to confide in her that what he would really like is to have everyone quietly round to the Manse one Christmas, though he knows in his heart they would never all fit.

'I haven't seen you nearly enough,' he says instead. 'It isn't fair you hardly ever call round when I'm home from school. And they want me to start working towards the Queen's entrance exam this summer.' That gives Una a shock and he clarifies, 'start studying for it, not sit it this summer.'

'That's all right then. Didn't _you_ once say to _me_ that I wasn't to go away without telling you?' In spite of her levity, she looks at Bruce and thinks how much he has grown since she last saw him, more inches than she cares to think about, of that she is sure.

'Don't worry, I'd tell you,' he says laughing. 'I tell you everything, you know.'

'I know,' she says, and then, trying to get back to lighter conversation she says,

'You might come round yourself,' and sits down at his feet, so the base of the window-ledge is behind her.

'I think you'd like the cats.'

'Persis says one of them killed a rabbit in the kitchen the other day, did she really?' he asks worriedly. He certainly wants to like the cats at Greengage Close, but it will be hard if they are prone to hurting things. Bruce has always been indiscriminate in his love of animals.

'She certainly tried to. I'm inclined to think Miriam is more your sort of cat Bruce, she loves everyone and everything.'

'Then I must visit,' he says.

'There might even be gingersnaps for you if you do,' says Una, although she knows she needn't coax him.

'Really?' he loves his mother, and he appreciates that it is her recipe that Una uses, but somehow, Una's gingersnaps are always harder and snap more when you bite into them.

More than the baking though, Bruce thinks, he has missed talking like this. Una undeniably had, still did, baby him, but not in any of the ways that counted for anything. When they talked like this, he felt really grown up, as if everything he said was of importance. Nobody else, except possibly Mrs. Dr. Blythe, has left Bruce with this impression. And it is primarily for this reason that he doesn't mind if Una cuddles him for the odd minute, or kisses his head, or strokes his hair, because she talks to him about things that have real weight, and implies that his little worries, about Moggie, about school, where the geese go in winter to avoid the cold, are just as important. He slides down onto the floor beside her and rests his head on her shoulder briefly. Then he sits up and reaches into his coat pocket.

'For Christmas,' he says, handing her a parcel.

'You haven't got to do that, you know,' she says and gives him a kiss, 'and thank you.'

'I wanted to,' he says, and folds himself up, so that he is sitting with his knees under his chin.

'Open it now,' he says, partly nervous because it is the first properly grown up gift he has given his sister, but partly full of the child's delight in the giving and receiving of Christmas treats.

'Don't you think it will keep till tomorrow?' she is laughing, not at him, but because his excitement is contagious.

'I don't think you'll want it to,' he says, the nervousness temporarily becoming the better part of his feelings. She looks at him curiously.

'It's not like you to be cryptic. I think you'd better leave it to Carl and Jerry. You'll make me think you've gone and grown up over night otherwise.' Still, she acquiesces and understands, as she does so, why he wanted her to have his gift now.

'Mother said…so I thought you might need them…because you once said…' Una looks at the lace-edged handkerchiefs and remembers exactly what she had said to him at the time; _all mothers have handkerchiefs like that. Mine had too_.

'Bless you for thinking of it,' she says and pulls him close.

The other reason Bruce cherishes her, he thinks, is because it is perfectly acceptable to go from having a meaningful conversation to needing to be cuddled, and that is how he feels just then, as he burrows into her side.

'You don't mind?' he asks now and Una, combs his hair absently, because the wind has mussed it coming over from the Manse.

She says, 'how could I mind? Tell me love, do you?'

He mumbles something that gets lost in fabric of her dress and the chatter of the others around them. He hates the idea of the people around him changing; it didn't matter so much about Faith because she had always been at one remove from him, but he had hated to let Jem go, that had been hard. He was even closer to Una; he had let her sit by him at night long after he had protested to his mother he was too big for anything so babyish. The first evening she had been away from home he had gone late at night into her room, because it still smelled of the things he associated with her, of cloves, lavender and lilac, and finally succeeded at falling asleep. It does not occur to Bruce that his mother knows this, that she looked in and found him asleep on the bed, and that this is why she has confided in him a thing she would not otherwise have spoken about. He does not want to admit he has mixed feelings about what ought, logically, to be good news, not least because his mother only told him because she thought he was big enough to know and not to say to anyone else. But what had he just said to her? _I tell you everything_? It is a very little voice that says, only slightly more distinctly than a moment ago,

'You will still have time for me?'

'I will always have time for you,' she says fiercely.

'Promise?'

'Cross my heart.'

After that he tries to relax, because it is Christmas Eve and it is meant to be magical. Una bends down and kisses the top of his head.

'You know I love you,' she murmurs and he hugs her with unwonted feeling.

'I love you too, he says, and looks up at her with glowing eyes.

'Tell me what you want to go on to study,' she says, and Bruce uncurls himself and sits up straighter, ready to talk seriously again.

_Really_, Susan thinks, taking the scene in at a glance, _Bruce is far too big to be snuggled like that_. She says nothing because she is acutely aware that if anyone understands how she feels about her brown boy, how he is just as much her child as Mrs. Dr. Dear's, it is Una, that minute determinedly mothering Bruce Meredith so quietly that he doesn't realize what she is doing. Susan does not need to look back at them, talking in the glow of the candlelight, to know that Rosemary's little boy will never reach the age where he has outgrown his sister's mothering, that she will go on loving him like that as long as Providence allows.


End file.
